The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy"

Project—On the stocks—Profile—Afloat alone—Smart lads—Swinging—Anchors—Happy boys—Sea reach—Good looks—Peep below—Important trifles—In the well—Chart—Watch on deck—Eating an egg...

Sheerness is on the whole a tolerable port to land at, that is, as long as you refrain from going ashore. The harbour is interesting and more lively than it appears at first sig...

After a wash and morning prayers the crew are piped to breakfast, so we must now turn to the kitchen, which after constant use some hundred times I cannot but feel is the most s...

The aneroid barometer in my cabin pointed to “set fair” for many a day, and just, too, when we required it most to be fine, that is along the French coast. Had the Rob Roy encou...

So much for Sunday thoughts; but after the day had ended, there happened to me an absurd misery, of the kind considered to be comical, and so beyond sympathy, but which must be...

Havre was a good resting-place to receive and send letters, read up the newspapers, get a long walk, and a hot bath, and fresh water and provisions. Bacon I found, after many tr...

The effect of living on board a little boat for a month at a time without more than three or four nights of usual repose, was to bring the mind and body into a curious condition...

As they walked past the building where this travelled ship was shewn, many of the visitors seemed each to be reading a paper in his hands, while some have a gilt-edged book, and...

While the voyage in the Rob Roy’s dingey on Sunday was such as we have described, it was a busy time a little further down the river at St. Cloud, being the first day of the Par...

The Rob Roy was very pleasant lodgings when moved down to the lovely bend at St. Cloud. Sometimes she was made fast to a tree, and the birds sung in my rigging, and gossamers sp...

High tide—Seine pilot—To bed—Terrible scene—A tumble in—In the swell—Novel steeling—The Empress—Puzzled—Night thoughts—The Start—A draft on the deck—Balloon jib—On the deep.

Up rose the sun, and all was cheerful. Then I laid her to, and got out my axe, and chopped the bowsprit into shape, so that it would run out further, and then set the whole jib...

See the sails are impatiently flapping. Each wave jerks the mast and canvas with a smart loud crack like that of a whip. The sound is unspeakably irritating, it seems so useless...

The boy and his dog formed a small crowd on the little pier to see the Rob Roy start again with a fine breeze off shore, but freshening every minute until near Selsea Bill it bl...

Medina Dock is the place to see all sorts of ships and boats for steam, sailing, or rowing, lifeboats, rafts, and models. The basin is full of broken-backed men-of-war whose old...

The ‘Nonpareil’ American life-raft was in Cowes after her Atlantic voyage of forty-three days at sea. Two of her three adventurous crew were Germans, who could speak English onl...

The regatta days opened with wind and rain; but even at the best of times, the sight of a sailing match from on shore is like that of a stag hunt from on foot,—very pretty at th...

“Where is the yawl now?” was the question we had asked in the fog, and the natural answer was—that the chart would tell, of course. So let us look at the small slice of chart co...

The barometer mounted steadily all Sunday, so we resolved to start next morning at break of day. But though the night was quiet the vessels near my berth were also getting ready...

Perhaps a sleep in wet clothes, such as we have awakened from, was more likely to do harm than any of the blasts and breezes at sea; but nothing followed, and indeed during the...

Margate has often been abused, laughed at, and snubbed, but it has never yet been properly described. How shall I describe Margate? It is too difficult to do well, and it has be...